ANTI-DRUG GROUP: WE TOLD YOU SO

Critics Had Warned Two Years Ago That New Ads Would Fail

WASHINGTON -- The group that produces most of the White House's anti-drug
ads said Wednesday it warned of problems in the government's $180 million
ad campaign back in 2000, but its concerns were not heeded. The Partnership
for a Drug-Free America responded to a survey that found no evidence the ad
campaign has reduced teen drug use. President Bush's top drug policy
adviser, John Walters, has warned the program will end if it is not improved.

Steve Pasierb, the group's executive director, said the ad campaign was
working well until two years ago. It bogged down in government bureaucracy,
spending on advertising dropped and producers were told to make ads that
were too subtle to have an impact.

"It was working. They changed it. It ain't working. Gee, I wonder why," he
said.

The group is a nonprofit coalition of media professionals who have donated
most of the ads used in the campaign.

In an Oct. 2, 2000, letter to former drug policy director Barry McCaffrey,
the group said that although the advertising campaign has slowed preteen
marijuana use, "it has been less effective with older teens, either in
reducing marijuana use or in driving down use of other dangerous drugs."

It said the campaign was providing too many messages in too short a time to
be effective. It also said the office was constantly reducing the portion
of its $180 million budget used to buy air time.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for Walters, said he was not familiar with the
letter. Walters took office last December.

Robert Weiner, who was McCaffrey's spokesman, said he had been aware of the
group's concerns and believed some had been addressed.

Riley said the new study, by the private research firm Westat and the
University of Pennsylvania, is the most comprehensive in examining the ad
campaign's overall effectiveness.

Of the decreased purchase of air time, Riley said money has been used for
other media, such as brochures and the Internet, to convey the anti-drug
message.

He also said the office was no longer taking a subtle tone in its anti-drug
messages, noting the only media campaign launched by Walters has been a
series of ads linking drugs to terrorism.